The complexities of Love Marie
As a celebrity and visual artist, a darling of two worlds that are superficially at odds, Love Marie Ongpauco Escudero’s (popularly known as Heart Evangelista) artworks invite the viewer to pore over the struggles, triumphs, sorrows, and elations of her life that are so public people think they know them, too well. But to contemplate Heart’s work on canvas or on an Hermès Birkin or on couture clothes—so detached from her work on TV or film or music—is to appreciate that we do not know her at all, at least not enough. Images by Pinggot Zulueta ‘Let her do what she wants.’ Heart has always been an artist. If that commercial agent didn’t spot her in that mall all those years ago, then her first solo exhibit at the Ayala Museum, “I Am Love Marie,” (which sold out an hour into its opening cocktail party) wouldn’t have been Manila Bulletin’s [...]